Weakness Can Be Provocative, But Deliberate Provocation Always Is

While Ukraine is not a NATO member, the U.S. should also send lethal aid to Kiev as a way of making Mr. Putin think twice about the costs of an invasion. Mr. Obama is worried that this will be too provocative, but what is really provocative to this Kremlin is weakness.

Since the Ukrainian military is evidently in no condition to fight, it is the worst sort of posturing to insist on sending weapons to make Russia “think twice” about an invasion. Suppose that the U.S. sends Ukraine some weapons. If Ukrainian forces aren’t ready to resist an invasion, and if they aren’t trained to use the weapons and equipment they are given, this would achieve nothing while potentially creating the expectation of greater military assistance. At best, it would be a futile gesture, and futile gestures never convey strength.

One of the many bigger flaws in the WSJ’s editorial is the boilerplate hawkish assumption that “weakness is provocative.” This is one of those mindless phrases that all hawks use, but very few ever bother to examine. There are times when weakness can be provocative. If a state can’t effectively defend itself, that can invite attack from its neighbors, but it often doesn’t for any number of reasons. Aggressive actions are far more likely to rile and provoke other states than is a perception of “weakness.” That is a problem for interventionists, since they are frequently demanding that the U.S. and its allies take more aggressive actions in various places around the world. These actions frequently do provoke other states, trigger undesirable responses, and may even precipitate armed conflict that they are supposedly aimed at discouraging. The U.S. should generally refrain from arming another government in an ongoing conflict unless it is treaty-bound to provide such assistance, and even then it should avoid doing so if it it is likely to escalate and intensify the conflict.

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29 Responses to Weakness Can Be Provocative, But Deliberate Provocation Always Is

The apparent weakness of Russia, not the U.S., is what encouraged western interests to back the Kiev coup and it is why it is perceived that military expansion into former Russian territory is seen as practical. U.S. leaders have said as much during this crisis – “Russia is no longer a superpower,” “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a nation,” “Russia is only a regional power.”

The gamble is that Russia is too feeble to fight back and that it can be forced into submission, something only possible when dealing with weak foes.

It is admitted by Washington and London’s leadership that these attempts to foment Russian regime change will harm the world economy – but that it is worth it. The reality is that elites won’t suffer from this at all, but hope to profit from it – else they wouldn’t do it. Those who suffer will be those who have no cushion of exorbitant wealth that insulates them from hardship – the vast majority of western citizens who will continue to bear the brunt of unemployment, outsourcing and offshoring – to completely undemocratic regimes far worse than Russia’s.

The apparent weakness of Russia, not the U.S., is what encouraged western interests to back the Kiev coup and it is why it is perceived that military expansion into former Russian territory is seen as practical.

Wrong. It is the apparent lack of grasp of military-political reality around Ukraine and total, I underscore–total, lack of understanding of Russia. Russia has some major problems, this is undeniable, but she is not weak. I want to stress it yet again, most Russia’s “experts” here, in US, they do not operate within the appropriate and only framework which can give some impression about the real state of the affairs. At this stage I have all reasons to make this conclusion. In fact, US already went through another “Chalabi” event. This time in Ukraine and with the consequences which are already having, unlike Iraq invasion, truly global consequences.

If memory serves, the Russians either scooped up or destroyed about 3 billion dollars worth of US military equipment in their brief dust-up with Georgia in 2008. A windfall waiting for them in Ukraine might be as much temptation as provocation.

Mainstream media claims Putin senses Obama’s weakness. This is not true. He senses US and EU weaknesses, which has nothing to do with the diplomatic tone but rather with the serious economic and political problems facing our economies. But then again, the move on Crimea cannot be explained solely in terms of relative strengths and weaknesses. The fact is the West made the first move with the coup in Kiev, and everything else is consequence. For Russia the access to the Black Sea and the “red line” for NATO to approach its borders are matters out of discussion. So this is not a game for them. If we want to avoid any further aggression of Russia in Eastern Europe, we have to speak clearly and frankly with the Russians about what is our strategy for NATO, and to emphasize these words with clear and unambiguous signs.

I said “perceived weakness,” that is quite different. As you point out, there are gross misunderstandings of the realities that are apparent to anyone with a modicum of discernment.

I am neither Russian nor have visited there. But I have been enriched by Russian literature of the past two centuries, exposure to its spirituality and study of its tragic trajectory of communism and aftermath. I have no animus towards Russians and was happy to employ Russian computer scientists when they were practically starving in the initial post-communist period – it was the Christian thing to do for people no longer enemies, in the spirit of hope and the old American values of fair play.

I think one misunderstanding on the Russian side is not realizing how much animus there is against Russia as a potential, rather than actual enemy. Thinking that getting rid of the Soviet was going to soften western hearts was a misperception of the fairness of the west’s power elites’ intentions.

This is the application of the dogma of foreign nations who are perceived by western hegemonist elites as too big not to have fail.

Mainstream media claims Putin senses Obama’s weakness. This is not true. He senses US and EU weaknesses

It has nothing to do with “weakness” of anyone. Zilch, nada. It has everything to do with how Russia views her own security. The only place where any kind of “weakness” or “strength” factors in is purely military operational (and strategic) issues when dealing with contingencies. Considering the level of ignorance of main stream media, their claims on this issue, as well as on many others, could be simply discarded as trash.

If we want to avoid any further aggression of Russia in Eastern Europe,

Russia has NO designs on Eastern Europe, which is in NATO. Russia has designs on Germany and only economic ones at that. This whole “Russia is going to invade Eastern Europe” hysteria is, in large part, not all, a product of visceral Russo-phobia of Polish (and Baltic States) political elites, who find it very expedient to have EU and NATO’s attention focused on themselves as a “first line” against hypothetical Russian “aggression”. Any, I underscore, any serious observer will have no difficulty understanding the sheer idiocy and lunacy of those hypothetical Russian encroachments towards Eastern Europe. Russians are capitalists and they have no interest in getting themselves embroiled with the nations who are second rate (or third) economies and population which, in a significant numbers, hates Russian guts. They buy Russian goods–it is good enough for Russia. I will omit here any military aspect of this “aggression”, which make all those suppositions utterly ridiculous.

P.S. There is no Russian “aggression” in Ukraine. When and if the Russian armor and paratroopers will roll into Donbass, then, yes, there will be grounds to talk about “aggression”.

But as I recall, we encouraged a coup that we had no control over and could not back up militarily.

I am not leaving where the initial blame lies on the question. I think it would disasterous turn of events to pour military into Kiev. The coup winners do have the upper moral hand and had they or the allies actually thought this through they would have noted the sheer impracticalities of doing so. Apparently, it was not one of national consensus.

We have divested our airbases, navel and ground forces that remain in Europe. However, the Wall Street Journal seems ignorant that Germany has already indicated,m at least publicly that she has no intention of going to war over the Ukraine.

Unless something has drastically changed or the press comments are a part of military gamesmanship — the WSJ is whistling Dixie.

It wasn’t just the USA’s lousy Russian experts who were caught off guard and flat footed by the Russian reaction to the Kiev coup. The EU diplomats and politicians seemed just as surprised. And they were every bit as involved as the US was in the fake “Maidan” protests. If the problem was simply that the USA doesn’t know anything about Russia and modern European history, then it appears as if the Europeans don’t know the history of Russia, or of their own continent, either.

OK, the US, or at least, elements in the Bush II Presidential Administration, knew next to nothing about Iraq, and got “Chalabied” as a price for that ignorance. But the French and Germans knew better. Lots of other folks did too. Even some of the countries that want along with Iraq II, at least initially, like Italy and Spain, were not fooled by Chalabi or necessarily convinced by the “WMD” rationale either. Rather, the political master of the Rome and Madrid leadership in Washington whistled, and they came a’runnin.’ Or, if you don’t like that way of looking at it, they were playing the USA, sucking up to it, because they expected it to win, and wanted their corporations to be allowed into the feeding trough. Whatever.

The point is that everyone’s mistakes about everything can’t be blamed on ignorance. Hell, even in the USA, there were plenty of folks with the minimal expertise to know that Chalabi was a joke, that WMD was BS, and that the occupation would not be met with showers of candy and roses. Indeed, then SOD Cheney said as much in his famous speech explaining the refusal to go on to Baghdad after the first Iraq war.

Rather, as Fran Macadam intimated, the experts in the USA do perceive “weakness,” relative weakness, anyway, everywhere. No one will stand up to the USA, they think, in their arrogance. But their arrogance is not quite the product of ignorance alone. The USA is the hyperpower. The USA was stronger in every way than the USSR, never mind current day Russia. The USA pretty much always gets what it wants, at least since the end of the Cold War, and usually before then as well. And when what it wants is someone’s scalp, that person, even if he resists, usually loses his scalp, or, at best, finds himself behind bars. Go ask Noriega, Saddam, Milosevic, Gaddafi, and so on. What seems like unlimited power goes to one’s head.

So, both the American and the Euro power elite thought that Russia and Putin would follow the same script. Putin might complain, but he would never upset the apple cart. Never stand up to the USA, never mind the USA and the EU united. Even though he had already demonstrated, in Georgia, that he and Russia were not going to be pushed around in the near abroad. And never mind that Russia is not Iraq, and has nuclear weapons, and delivery systems, a large conventional military, tons of resources and territory, a growing and modernizing economy, and a large and well educated population, which is patriotic and nationalistic, and which is itself tired of seeing its country pushed around.

They, the American and EU politicians and diplomats and “experts,” miscalculated. Whether from arrogance or ignorance or both or some third reason really doesn’t matter now. What matters is cabining the damage. I agree that Putin has no designs on current NATO members. And that is a combination of not wanting to bite off more than he, or Russia, can chew, and partly because the USA probably would react, militarily, to an attack on any NATO country, no matter how far east, and no matter how ill advised their entry into that alliance.

With that in mind, a deal should be, and probably can be, cut. The rest of Ukraine (ie not Crimea, which is, I think, a done deal) should be decentralized and kept neutral, and the language and political rights of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers should be guaranteed. There should be no new NATO members (with Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia, and maybe Armenia as well explicitly taken off the table). There should be no new sanctions placed on Russia, and those already placed should be withdrawn. Russia should state that it has no designs on the current NATO members and that it can live with a neutral, decentralized Ukraine. And restore the nice energy deal with it as well. The West can handle dealing with the rest of the financial fallout in Ukraine.

Then, the US (and EU) experts can face the fire for their miscalculation, and hit the books, and learn some humility, as part of the efforts to do better next time!

Hell, even in the USA, there were plenty of folks with the minimal expertise to know that Chalabi was a joke, that WMD was BS,

CIA, obviously, were the good guys in 2003 and had their hands twisted. At least that was my perception, which was reinforced after I watched, with pleasure I may say, the fact based flick “Fair Game”. Well, that and me liking Naomi Watts certainly helped.

Then, the US (and EU) experts can face the fire for their miscalculation, and hit the books, and learn some humility, as part of the efforts to do better next time!

Strangely enough (or may be not at all), the things which are being discussed in the lobbies of Council Of Europe and opinions expressed there privately differ drastically with the opinions of the same people the minute they get back to the main assembly. Bizarre, really.

There should be no new NATO members (with Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine, and Georgia, and maybe Armenia as well explicitly taken off the table). There should be no new sanctions placed on Russia, and those already placed should be withdrawn. Russia should state that it has no designs on the current NATO members and that it can live with a neutral, decentralized Ukraine. And restore the nice energy deal with it as well

As strange as it may sound but Russia would love that deal and..here it comes…as well as seeing Ukraine as a whole couple of weeks ago. But the dynamics on the ground in Donbass region changed dramatically and all this is now in total limbo. Lugansk, Donetsk and adjacent territories are leaning now more and more towards full independence and eventually joining Russia. This is the perspective which Russia does not necessarily like. It is one thing to support South-East of Ukraine by buying its goods as it was done for decades now or even organizing free trade zone, totally another is having several million additional people being brought as a very serious additional load for Russia’s budget. Apart from newly reacquired Crimea with its 2 million people, the living standard and salaries in Russia are incomparably higher than the same is in Donbass region. Now, Donbass coal-miners are well aware that Russian coal-miners get, working in the mines, 100,000 rubles and up (around 3,000 USD) and have some pretty good social packages. If ever joining Russia they would expect the same. This is a recipe for instability since it will take some years to bring them to that level, not to mention a massive investment required in Donbass coal mines, to modernize them, while having still very high costs. This is just one example among many. But then again, blood is thicker than wine. Each day situation changes. It is a mess….What is obvious, Donbass doesn’t want to live with Kiev anymore.

I have no animus towards Russians and was happy to employ Russian computer scientists when they were practically starving in the initial post-communist period – it was the Christian thing to do for people no longer enemies, in the spirit of hope and the old American values of fair play.

You may be surprised but even today the majority of Russians separate very clearly regular American people and its government and “elites”. It has to be pointed out, though, that Russians are on the order (if not two or three) are more informed about US than the other way around. You could be simply overwhelmed with the Russian news stream which daily covers an enormous number of international news, from Crisis in Ukraine (obviously being the front and center now) to internal US and EU politics. Russia still has the Institute Of United States And Canada

and has a number of resources, such as InoSmi (Foreign Media), where daily a huge number of translations are done from all important international media, including, obviously, The American Conservative too.

Philadelphialawyer said: “Then, the US (and EU) experts can face the fire for their miscalculation, and hit the books, and learn some humility, as part of the efforts to do better next time!”

You must be joking! We all know by now that accountability for the disastrous foreign policy choices of recent decades is not a feature of American (or EU) political life in recent times. Thoroughly discredited by the results of their “projects”, the architects of such policies only call for doubling down, more of the same, and they seem to me to remain the dominant voice in the media, especially during the current crisis.

As to the issue of ignorance. With all due respect, I can’t think of any of the recent U.S. foreign policy projects — I’m thinking of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Ukraine — that reflect any actual awareness among policy makers or so-called experts of local cultures, societal complexities, or historical context. That is not innate ignorance, I suppose, but it is a willed ignorance. In short, the political class in Washington interpreted the collapse of the USSR — the only countervailing force that could incinerate the American homeland — as a license to organize American dominance of the globe, unrestricted by notions of international law, the limitations of U.S. national finances or the tragic absurdity of its self-declared mission to remake in our own image those states and nations that were the object of our “attentions”. After all, “we won the cold war”! And didn’t Fukuyama famously declare “the end of history” in favor of “liberal democracy”? Ergo, the United States is entitled, as the “leader of the Free World”, to dictate terms to everyone else and, as you noted, slap around a bunch of weak countries that dared defy us. This sort of triumphalism combines both ignorance and arrogance in a profoundly simplistic narrative: expertise only gets in the way, it’s a nuisance, an obstacle, and has to be marginalized. As it was in the run-up to the Iraq war, so it is now.

This is how you get Nudelman/Nuland, with her little BA from Brown University and her connections to the Cheneyite cabal as the State Department’s “engineer” for Eurasian affairs. This is how you get Samantha Power’s boorish tantrums in the UNSC, exasperated that the “losers” in the cold war are standing up to the “international community” (meaning the USA). This is how you get suppression of expertise in the mainstream press and whisper campaigns against “Putin apologists”.

And this DOES matter even now, quite crucially. The contours of the deal you sensibly describe have either been known for a long time before the crisis (non-bloc status) or have been proposed in a comprehensive way by Lavrov already weeks ago. But the American political class, its foreign policy instrumentalities, its stenographers and mouthpieces in the mainstream media and the “war party” that is the U.S. Congress, still don’t get the picture, even after the Georgian war, even after Crimea. Given the triumphalist mindset that has completely taken over the U.S. political class over the last quarter century, they STILL think they can get the whole cake and bludgeon the Russians into submission through sanctions, by urging on an escalation of the violence in the eastern provinces toward civil war and by turning a blind eye to the active suppression of East Ukrainian political figures who haven’t fully “gotten with the program”.

And how could such a deal be effectuated? At this point, would Russia really trust Washington to live up to any bargain it made, without a formal written agreement, signed on to by NATO, the EU, and ratified by the UN Security Council? Good luck with that: the “indispensable nation” won’t allow its hands to be tied.

And as far as “containment 2.0″ goes, that’s just more garbage out of DC. NATO expansion, missile shields and the refusal of the West to include Russia in a European security architecture always meant that the first version was fully operable.

“CIA, obviously, were the good guys in 2003 and had their hands twisted. At least that was my perception, which was reinforced after I watched, with pleasure I may say, the fact based flick “Fair Game”. Well, that and me liking Naomi Watts certainly helped.”

I think I can lean a in that direction some. Though i am not sure about “Fair Game.”

“It has to be pointed out, though, that Russians are on the order (if not two or three) are more informed about US than the other way around.”

Many countries’ people are far better informed about America than Americans generally are about theirs. Which is to say, not necessarily well-informed, but better informed.

I realized that even communists were fully human with a sense of morality common to all of us, not just caricatures of evil, after watching “Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears,” ironically a film made during the Brezhnev years. There was even the courage of a single mother who made the choice not to abort – and the selfish TV anchorman who later wanted to see the child he fathered. That we should be thinking of vaporizing cities of our fellow human beings, just like us at bottom despite the political system they live under, is truly evil. Now we have our elites contemplating it again, over money.

” The USA was stronger in every way than the USSR, never mind current day Russia. The USA pretty much always gets what it wants, at least since the end of the Cold War, and usually before then as well. And when what it wants is someone’s scalp, that person, even if he resists, usually loses his scalp, or, at best, finds himself behind bars. Go ask Noriega, Saddam, Milosevic, Gaddafi, and so on. What seems like unlimited power goes to one’s head.”

This is a leap. The US may get what it wants short term, but whether it get what it wants via long term strategic engagement is a much tougher call. Sure they wanted ti get so and so. But in the above mentioned cases only two have had any real impact on US goals Noreiga and Milosovic.

Iraq is now more inclined to have terrorists and terrorist havens. It certainly less stable in every way. Eventually, the Kurds are going to have to face facts, that Iraq is never going to permit them to carve out a state and all of those factors make it more likely that wmd can be smuggled or reconstituted by the willing.

Libyan nationalist are still chomping at the bit to control the oil resources ad wrestle it out the hands of western interests. The region remains susceptible mass civil conflict. Last month the US siezed an oil tanker by one state attempting to just such an attempt. Apparently the only functional organization critical to restoring some sense of order, the central bank is now under fire.

And I think it is presumptuous to assume anything about Russian military capability against the US. Russia may have its issues and have not regained the force it once had as the Soviet Union — but any suggestion that engaging them is going to a hop skip and jump down a yellow brick road is to ignore history when the odds are played out against her. It will be disastarously costly and despite NATO, if it could held together at such an endeavour. The mistakes we make will not be covered by Russian weakness as with smaller less prepared nations – despite US powers. None of the above four can be compared to Russia.

The Russian scholarly establishment was always a world-class institution, both before and after the revolution, in close contact and exchange with European colleagues, and this despite all the “administrative methods” and close ideological supervision that grew to be part of the working environment during and after the Stalin era. In the social sciences, which I know a little as an historian, Russian specialists are always multilingual, quite conversant with the foreign literature, easily comfortable with interdisciplinary methodologies of the most varied sorts and fully adept at both archival research and its synthesis in written and oral presentation. Expertise in this establishment is developed slowly and carefully, one generation of scholars being linked to the preceding generation by a passing of traditions and knowledge in the close working relationship between students and teachers and in the context of a collective and collaborative interaction that is quite absent, in my experience, in the Western model, where competition is generally the rule. It helps, of course, that, as in Europe, the leading institutions are concentrated in the capital cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg.

What is too often forgotten is that at the very beginning of the twentieth century, 80% of Russian subjects lived in the countryside. These were almost entirely illiterate peasants with a strictly oral tradition for passing the social customs and farming practices of their ancestors (though the 1897 census data show that in the age cohorts 10-19 and 20-29 this was already not the case). It is also true that the now much despised Soviet system, for this mass of its citizens, was actually a resounding success in promoting full literacy, introducing accessible medical care and educational institutions into every “bear’s corner” and setting up a comprehensive social safety net. That these tasks had to be accomplished against the background of revolution, civil war, successive Five-Year plans for industrial development, de-kulakization and collectivization, the Great Purges of 1930s, and the enormously destructive Great Patriotic War, is a measure of the depth of this commitment. It is perhaps an irony of history – or its logical consequence – that the very success of this vast enterprise contained the seeds of its own troubles: by the end of the century, the mass of Russian citizenry, and especially (again!) the younger generation, simply outgrew the cruder ideological constructs and mythologies of an earlier time upon which the system itself rested.

It is a little like imagining what the consequences would be here if a really critical mass of Americans woke up to the fact that “democracy” in the United States and its “constitutional order” had in fact been completely subverted, hollowed out and discarded, despite all the endlessly repeated propaganda about government “of the people, by the people and for the people.”

You seem to be taking issue with what I wrote, yet your entire post points to arrogance as one of the main reasons behind the horrible post Cold War US Foreign Policy, same as mine does. In every case you mention, there were, obviously, real experts inside and outside of the US, whose knowledge and opinions were available to US decision makers. They just simply refused to seek out or listen to those experts.

Why? Merely because the decision makers are too ignorant to know better and/or too stupid to even know that they are ignorant? I really don’t think that’s the whole answer. Yes, there is ignorance at play here, but, as you yourself say, it is a WILLED ignorance (“That is not innate ignorance, I suppose, but it is a willed ignorance”). And that, to me, sounds an awful lot like arrogance.

On my proposed deal, I agree, a formal, written treaty might be necessary.

As for my little comment about the experts studying up and doing better next time, yes, that was a joke. Sort of an inside one with Andrew. Sorry if it misled you.

Andrew:

How do you square your claims about Russia not wanting any more of Ukraine with reports coming out that Russian operatives are themselves precipitating the instability in the Russian speaking, ethnic Russian areas? Are those reports just mistaken? Propaganda? This is meant as a real question, a request for information, not as an argumentative trap or sarcastic comment.

How do you square your claims about Russia not wanting any more of Ukraine with reports coming out that Russian operatives are themselves precipitating the instability in the Russian speaking, ethnic Russian areas? Are those reports just mistaken? Propaganda? This is meant as a real question, a request for information, not as an argumentative trap or sarcastic comment.

1. I have no doubts that there are at least some Russian operatives on the ground in Ukraine;
2. Having said that, they are not there to break Ukraine apart. If they are there, they are most likely to offer help in organizing the resistance to junta in Kiev;
3. Russia’s concern for the safety and lives of about 8 million ethnic Russians and Russophone Ukrainians is genuine;
4. There are all reasons, well documented (of course, ignored completely in US) and publicized, to assess the intentions of bunch of the thugs in Kiev as most hostile (up to calls for genocide of Russians) both towards own citizens of Russian decent and Russia;
5. The reports of “instability” are pure propaganda. Movements of the troops, SBU units and of the Nazi thugs from Yarosh “brigades” into the Eastern Ukraine testify clearly, without any doubts, who foments the instability. After all, recall what was the very first legislature of junta upon overthrowing a legitimate Ukrainian government?
6. Junta in Kiev has a power element which is plain and simple Nazi. Period. Russia does not negotiate with Nazis. She kills them.

So, in general, Russia is interested in neutral Ukraine which has a very strong autonomy for her South-Eastern regions. To accomplished that the thugs in Kiev, who already spilled much blood, should be thrown out, arrested and tried as criminals. And yes, the “information” which comes from Western media is plain simple propaganda. Crude one at that. Basically it is narrative created in Kiev and gladly reproduced in US. Well, take a look in whose seat was Joe Biden sitting during his meeting with junta in Kiev several days ago.

P.S. If Russia wanted to break Ukraine apart, she would have done this already. It is not very difficult from military point of view.

Excellent summary. It was Kennan who recognized that:”Not all that went by the name of communism in Russia was bad; nor were all of people who believed in it.”(c) But, as I already stated many times, very few US Russian scholars truly understand the significance of the Soviet period in Russian history and prefer to look at it merely from the point of view of GULAG and crimes which went with it. That is, they prefer Solzhenitsified version of Russian history since, they think, it gives them a moral high ground. Russia’s 20th century history is a direct challenge to American messianic perception of herself. Even when the facts are known, their juxtaposition is completely wrong.

after watching “Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears,” ironically a film made during the Brezhnev year

The reason this movie became a cult classic in Russia (apart from getting an Oscar) is because it succinctly conveyed the whole spirit of the epoch from late 1950-s through the very end of 1970s. In fact, for many foreigners it is a very good primer for getting a grasp of Soviet history after Stalin’s death. This movie is still loved today, even by a younger generation. Obviously, the other masterpiece by Vladimir Menshov, Love And Pigeons (Lubov I Golubi), which came out in 1984 also became a national classic. But this one has to be watched in Russian, unlike Moscow Does Not Believe In Tears.

I don’t think we disagree necessarily, it’s true. What I’m try to get at — beyond the issue of arrogance or ignorance — is the power of the simplistic and self-serving post-1991 narrative to completely block out other explanations for what we have been seeing. The practitioners at State or other large foreign policy (and not only foreign policy) bureaucracies have quite apparently bought fully into their own propaganda about a benign superpower, even against all the evidence. This is a sort of group-think that affects everything: inter-bureau interaction, recruitment, networking, research, operations, moral justification, etc. To me, this group-think appears dangerously clueless, arrogant and ignorant, but their perception is obviously somewhere else. Interestingly, though, the fact that more and more of these “projects” are being hatched, financed and launched in total secrecy and are being covered over by the grossest exercises in media manipulation suggests that an open public dialogue can’t be risked.

I will merely add to Andrew’s summary, with which I fully concur, that the eastern provinces — even before the IMF “medicine” is applied — are in increasingly dire socio-economic straits. There have been repeated reports of restiveness among the work force in the big coal mining industry and the outbreak of strikes at several sites. The effect of the looming collapse of the Ukrainian economy on the mood of the population, I think, has as much to do with the situation as the junta’s indulgence of its right-wingers with repeated and incendiary statements and legislative projects aimed at national minorities, most pointedly at the Russians and Russian-speakers. The use of the neo-Nazi and fascist militias, of course, is the game changer. I don’t see how the trajectory set in motion by the coup can now be altered.